"Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called 'premium content', typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry."

It's the content providers' fault for requesting that level of paranoiac protection in the first place. But Microsoft was very happy to provide this for two reasons :
* Strong customer lock-in. Apple will certainly follow if needed (when protected content becomes mainstream), but would have to licence MS technology. On the other hand, FLOSS cannot sanely implement the full TCPA stack required.
* Forced hardware upgrade. Meaning more OEM Windows sales.

The hardware manufacturer are just doing what they're told. Pleasing MS and not having one less "feature" than the opponent is a must, forcing customers to upgrade is a nice bonus.

Note that all this awfull technology is now in the content providers' hands, who will decide how much content will be subject to the restriction.
I still (naively ?) hope that consumers will object strongly enough (boycot) to such restricted content, that content providers will give up the idea. Then the "only" price we'd have paid is the big waste of R&D and the hardware upgrades.